


where i took his hand in mine

by louchanan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, F/M, Gay Bucky Barnes, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Trans Male Character, Trans Steve Rogers, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-07-29 03:40:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20075521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louchanan/pseuds/louchanan
Summary: Steve falls in love with Peggy, Bucky, and then himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello, it's been 3 years and im sorry. i've had such a hard time writing and finishing anything in that time that i was proud of. i think this is my 3rd or 4th time rewriting This story and i'm not even sure if this is the one either, but i'm crossing my fingers bc i love when my favorite characters are trans like Me :^). i hope you all have been doing well. 
> 
> this isn't beta'd. none of my fics ever are, unfortunately, but i think we'll live. i'll be updating the tags as i add more chapters. quick tw for transphobia, some violence, and sexual harassment in this little chapter. next chapters should be longer. maybe.
> 
> title is from no good - perfume genius.

“Where the hell have you been?” Bucky asks, voice a concoction of annoyed and concerned, as he turns the page of his newspaper but keeps his eyes on Steve over the top of it. He notices the dejected state of his best friend as he puts his key down on the side table and takes off his jacket. It doesn’t take a genius to know what’s wrong, just a friend. He puts the paper down and stands from the couch. Steve doesn’t even look at Bucky as he grabs his jacket and rummages through the pocket to pull out an enlistment form. “Steve,” Bucky sighs. 

“I know.”

Bucky unfolds it and sees the stamp of rejection in the corner, three of them in the tiny box. It fills him with a bad feeling thinking about Steve being ridiculed and subjected to this excessive reminder that he isn’t cut out for the army like the rest of them. “Buddy… You know they’re not going to take you,” Bucky says softly. He takes Steve’s hand in his and rubs his thumb into the back of it. 

Steve pulls his hand away and mutters, “Don’t touch me like I’m a dame. I’m not your fucking dame,” as he begins to walk deeper into the small apartment.

It cuts Bucky deep when he gets like this. He turns to see Steve with his hands pressed into the edges of the kitchen sink and breathing deep enough to have his shoulders rise and fall. “I know that. I don’t see you as a dame. You’re not a dame,” Bucky replies as he follows his trail. “But Steve, you have to know… that they don’t see you that way, the way I see you. And if you keep doing this, you know what could happen.”

Steve turns around and leans against the sink, crossing his arms across his chest and sniffling to hide the runniness of his nose. He’s trying to look collected but Bucky sees through it after years of being friends. Steve knows it but it doesn’t stop him from trying. “I know that, Buck,” Steve says before pressing his index finger into the corner of his eye. He snorts and smiles halfheartedly, contorted by pain. “He stamped that damn form three damn times and laughed at me.”

“Stevie–,” Bucky starts. But Steve stops him.

“He said, ‘Sweetheart, the army is for  _ real _ men. Not you gals who cut your hair and get confused,’” Steve recalls, face falling as he relives that humiliation. “He stamped it three times,” he repeats as his throat starts to go tight and rough. He turns around and lets himself silently fall apart now that Bucky can’t see his face. 

Bucky sighs and tosses the enlistment form on the rickety dinner table. He crosses the rest of the distance between them and wraps his arms around Steve from behind. “You’re a man, Stevie. There are boys in the States running away from the war but you’re tryin’ to run to it instead because you’re brave, the way men should be,” Bucky reassures him but he can’t deny that he’s glad. Steve being with him this long, poor health considered, is against the odds. Bucky doesn’t want him to stretch his luck. “You’re a man. More than the rest of us,” Bucky says, eyes getting glassy.

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve croaks before turning himself around in his embrace for a proper hug. Bucky pats him comfortingly on the back and Steve returns it. 

Bucky pulls himself back just enough to smile at Steve’s pink-rimmed eyes and says, “C’mon. I fixed the radio. You can draw and listen to it again.”

They retreat to the couch where Steve sits down with his sketchpad rested on Bucky’s toned stomach. Bucky lies with his back across Steve’s lap and arms under his head to support it. Bucky listens to the radio and the gentle scratch of graphite against paper as his eyes flutter shut. Steve smiles at him and continues to draw him. 

They’re a tactile pair, comfortable hugging and dancing together, because since it means nothing on one side, it can’t mean anything at all. Sure, Bucky feels like the sun doesn’t shine until he sees Steve but he can’t let himself think that the way they are together means anything. They could be together and it’d be accepted but Bucky knows that’d insult Steve’s identity as a man. And Steve likes dames. It’s one of the reasons he is the way he is, Bucky thinks. 

Bucky wakes slowly, mumbling the lyrics of the song playing on the radio until he feels alert. He smirks ridiculously as he nods his head side to side as he continues to sing, “ _ Yes, my heart belongs to Daddy. So I simply couldn’t be bad. _ ” It makes Steve giggle and hit him in the thigh. “C’mon, Stevie. You love my singing.”

“Your singing makes me think of the kids back in school dragging their nails on chalkboards,” Steve insults him playfully.

“You’re a jerk,” Bucky replies as he stands up, making sure Steve grabs his sketchpad and pencil before he moves. “I was putting on a show for you… and you just throw that all away.”

He looks over his shoulder and feels the clouds clear in the room, sun shine brighter, when he finds Steve smiling again. Everything is right in the world when his Steve is smiling.

* * *

A few weeks later, Steve finds himself in the same situation. Bucky would’ve stopped him but Bucky wasn’t there. No, he was training for the war and Steve saw very little of him. Some weekends he’d be back and they’d stay in to just be with each other, but he was gone the rest of the time and their small apartment would feel too big. 

Steve’s able to keep his shirt on which allows him to stay in the facility for a few more minutes than he usually gets when he has it off and they got a look at his suspicious chest, the lack of muscle, and the little swells of his hips. He gets a few more minutes but they turn him away for the fourth time with a harsh stamp that feels like a kick to his stomach. 

He takes routes through empty alleys to get home, trying to avoid anyone from seeing him crying and steaming from his ears. He hears footsteps that are not his own. “I can’t believe you thought you’d get into the army,” some stranger sneers at him, clearly having followed him from the recruiting station. “Didn’t you know the army is for men? Not little girls like you. If the Krauts don’t get to you, you know we would. And we’d take turns. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, doll?” 

Steve growls as he shoves him, only enough to get him to lose his balance for a moment. But his center of gravity returns too quick for Steve to process and then he’s being knocked to the ground from a punch to his cheek. Loose gravel digs into his palms as he gets himself back to his feet only to be met with another fist. 

The man grabs him by the back of his jacket and yanks him to his feet just to spit in his face, winding back his fist to hit him again. “Fucking queer bitch,” he hisses into Steve’s face. 

Steve braces himself for another punch but it doesn’t come. He’s let go instead and he opens his eyes to find Bucky pinning the man against the brick wall opposite of him. “Leave him alone,” Bucky seethes, gripping the man’s collar with both of his hands. 

The foolish man still won’t drop it and he dares to test Bucky by commenting, “‘Him’? That’s a fucking girl.”

“Well, you don’t fucking hit girls, do you, pal?” Bucky says and then pulls him away from the wall just to shove him back into it, throwing a devastating left hook. The man starts to run but Bucky still manages to kick him in the ass as a parting gift. He watches the man turn the corner before he turns back to aid Steve. 

Steve wipes the drip of blood off his cupid’s bow and snorts up whatever coats the inside of his nostril. “Steve, you gotta stop letting me catch you like this every time I’m allowed off the base. You want to go to war so bad, you’re trying to bring it to yourself, pal,” Bucky tries to joke to make light of the situation. 

He lends Steve a hand but he denies it and stands by himself, rubbing his hands together to rid of the tiny rocks still embedded in his skin. “You called me a girl,” Steve says coldly as he brushes off the dirt on his jacket and doesn’t meet Bucky’s eyes. 

There’s a beat. “Steve. Steve, you got it wrong. I didn’t mean it like that,” Bucky sighs. 

“‘You don’t hit girls,’” Steve quotes him. He’s hurt and Bucky can’t believe he’s the one to do this to him. “He was hitting  _ me _ . How did you mean anything else by that?”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to make it right so he says nothing but, “Sorry, Steve. I’m sorry.”

Steve glances at him but has to give him a second look because now he notices the green suit and cap. If fucking up and disrespecting Steve’s identity didn’t make Bucky feel like the devil himself, the way Steve’s brokenly eyeing him now does. He wants to say Sorry again and repeat it until his lips bleed and tongue falls out of his mouth. 

“Did you get your orders?” Steve asks, swallowing the lump in his throat. 

Bucky clears his throat before saying, “107th. Sergeant James Barnes. Shipping out for England first thing tomorrow.” 

Steve tries to bite back the bitter tears, almost drawing blood from his lip, as he says, “I should be going.”

“Steve.”

“I should be going.”

“No,” Bucky replies sternly, needing this to end. He grabs Steve’s arm and pulls him into his side. “We’re going home,” Bucky says with finality in his voice as he drags Steve along. If Steve is going to blow up at him, which is going to happen any minute now, he’d rather do it in the meager privacy that the thin walls of their apartment allow. 

The door shuts behind Bucky and he counts down the seconds to Steve’s eruption. But it never comes. He watches Steve take off his jacket, the way he always does, and then retreat to their room wordlessly. That makes Bucky ache even more than Steve spitting harsh profanities at him. 

He takes off his cap and shrugs off his jacket before going to find Steve sitting at the foot of their bed, shoulders hunched over and face in his hands. “All these years, I thought you saw me, actually saw me,” Steve mumbles as he wipes his tears. “But no, I’m just a helpless dame for you to save and you just tell me what I want to fucking hear, right? That’s how you really see me.”

“Steve, that’s not what I–”

“I’m probably never going to fight in the war. I just can’t believe you’ve never actually believed in me. You never had an ounce of faith in me.” 

Bucky wants to pull out his hair. He slams the bedroom door shut instead, fuming. “Why do you want to fight so much? Why do you want to go out and die so much, huh?” Bucky asks raggedly as tears begin to spring in his eyes as he considers Steve’s possible answers. 

He knows how much living is a pain for Steve, has had to talk him down and sometimes restrain him from doing something dumb. The world is cruel but Bucky will end that cruelty before he ever let’s Steve leave him. He stomps his way over to Steve to loom above him. “You think I want you to go to war? You think I hope and pray everyday that one day they’re going to give you a pass? Fuck no. War is war, Stevie. A bullet can kill anybody and I just don’t want it to be you!”

He pulls Steve close with a worrying amount of force, leaning down to resting his head on his bony chest and listen to his beating heart. It’s a troubled heart but it’s still beating and it’s a miracle that it is after all the bad winters they’ve had. Bucky could never imagine himself putting this heart in danger, throwing it into a war and letting it be torn apart by shrapnel. He could never. 

Steve stays silent and Bucky feels like he’s finally won. But he keeps going, “You’re a man, Stevie. I’ve never seen you as anything else because you’re so strong and caring, stubborn as fucking hell, and brave, braver than me.” He chuckles sadly before adding, “You’re over here lying on enlistment forms and trying to fight a war that everyone else wants to run away from, that I want to run away from. You’re enlisting while some of us just pray we don’t get the draft.” Steve feels Bucky’s shoulders rise and fall, “Praying never really worked out for me though.”

He feels the stutter in Steve’s breath and the way he stills. “What?” Steve blurts.

Bucky lifts his head so they’re eye to eye and he gives Steve a smile. He wants to save this night as much as he can because it could very well be their last night together. They shouldn’t be spending it upset. They should be out dancing with pretty dames and smiling. Steve should be smiling. But Bucky’s fucked it all up.

“I didn’t enlist, Stevie,” Bucky admits, still grinning even as a tear falls off of his lower lashes and onto his cheekbone. “I got the draft. Snatched up the letters before you could see ‘em and just haven’t grown the nerve to say anything about them until now.”

“Buck…,” Steve breathes.

“If I could have it my way, I’d have us both here,” Bucky continues. “You know I don’t wanna leave you but you can’t come with me. You can’t because I won’t know what to do with myself if something happens to you. So please, stop. Stop trying to fight. Stay here and stay alive and I promise I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Okay,” he replies and Bucky gives him a look. Steve huffs at his lack of faith, “I’ll stop, okay?”

“Okay,” Bucky can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. “Thank you, pal.”

“Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” Steve grumbles as he pats Bucky on the back and holds him tighter. They part after that.

“I want to go dancing with some girls, you know, Dot and Connie,” Bucky says, trying to right the color of the room, poking Steve’s soft bicep. “She likes you a lot.”

Steve gives a strained smile. “Yeah. She’s great but,” he sighs, “I think Connie likes girls, Buck. And I’m not a girl in men’s clothing.”

“Okay then. No girls. Then let’s just go out, just you and me and however many drinks I can buy with the small amount of cash we don’t need for bills. Does that sound good?” Bucky asks and his question is answered by the grin on Steve’s face. 

It seems Steve is getting turned away everywhere nowadays but this time, sitting at a bar, he has a choice. The thing is he tries to use his ID as little as he can and he can get through life just easy enough without getting that stare he always gets when someone reads the feminine name printed on his card. But sometimes it isn’t so easy and he’s mistaken for a 15-year-old boy trying to get a drink. He has a choice to show his card or leave. 

Bucky knows he doesn’t want to show his card so he says, “C’mon.” And they leave together. 

Maybe it’s just him trying to find some reason not to feel disappointed but Bucky thinks it’s better this way. He wants to hold onto this night as long as he can, and he thinks it’ll be easier without alcohol making the details fuzzy. This night will be one of the last memories he has of Brooklyn, of Steve, before he’s shipped off to England for an unknown amount of time and though he promised, there’s no way of being sure that he’s going to survive the war. He doesn’t want to think about that. 

Steve follows Bucky, watching his shoes, until they start walking through a sea of people. He looks up to find a car in the center of the stage before them, an expensively dressed man that Bucky recognizes as Howard Stark speaking into a mic, and a group of girls pulling away the false tires. Then the car begins to float. Bucky looks back at Steve with excitement on his face. Steve smiles at him because he knows Bucky loves this stuff. Science was always one of his favorite subjects in school. 

He’s stopped paying any attention to the exhibition and his eyes wander, catching a poster of Uncle Sam pointing at him in the distance. He looks over to the left and sees another recruiting center, the inside glowing like a beacon of light from Heaven. He knows he promised but one more attempt wouldn’t hurt anything, maybe just his self esteem. He slinks away from Bucky and starts walking towards the station. If Bucky finds him, he’ll be the first person he kills even before he makes it to the front. 

He gets four steps inside before a hand lands on his shoulder and spins him around. Bucky is there, his jaw set and an angry glare on his face. “You promised, Steve,” He reminds him. “It’s… It’s my last day and you’re breaking promises on me now? It hasn’t even been 3 hours since your last try. This isn’t a back alley, Steve. It’s war! _Why_ do you want to fight so bad?”

“There are men laying down their lives. I have no right to do any less than them,” Steve answers, wishing that Bucky would just leave it alone. “It isn’t about me.”

“Right,” Bucky says with a nod, eyes still narrowed at Steve. “‘Cause you’ve got nothing to prove.” 

Steve sighs, knowing that that’s part of the truth he keeps trying to deny. He goes to apologize but Bucky cuts him off. “I’m going home. Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself killed in an alley or something,” Bucky says as he walks backward, always wanting one good last look at Steve whenever he has to walk away. 

“You won’t be able to stop me when you go to war, you know,” Steve jokes morbidly. 

Bucky exhales from his nose and rolls his eyes as he goes back over to him. “You’re a punk,” Bucky grumbles as he opens his arms to Steve and pulls him into a hug. 

“Jerk.” 

When Steve gets home that night, he finds Bucky asleep on his side of the bed. He pulls out his fifth enlistment slip from his pocket and hides it in his dresser. It’s the only one of the five he’s had to hide.

* * *

“I’m going to be late, Stevie,” Bucky says to the man still wrapped up in bed as he ties his boot. “So c’mon. Get up and give me a hug before I leave.”

Steve smiles sleepily and stretches out his crooked back, combing through his sandy hair with a lazy hand, a sigh leaving his lips and the hard peaks of his nipples poking through his thin white A-shirt. It’s a sight that has Bucky’s breath hitch in this throat and warmth stirring in his belly.

He thinks about the insecurity Steve has harbored since figuring out who he is, the things he remembers people telling him. Steve fears that he’ll never find anyone who wants him. His mother, who loved him very dearly, had that fear too because she didn’t want Steve to live a life of loneliness. “Women love men and men love women. Who’s going to love you, Steve?” She had told him, not meaning any harm. It was ignorance, Bucky knows, because he’s loved Steve for years and he doesn’t see that ever changing. 

He averts his eyes with a clear of his throat and tightens his laces. He stands up straight as Steve swings his feet over the side of the bed, toes just touching the floor. Steve looks up at him, the morning sun pale and shining into his blue eyes. Bucky thinks about how easy it would be to hold Steve’s cheek and kiss him, taste what he’s been forcing himself not to want. 

“Well?” Bucky asks.

Steve chuckles before standing and pressing himself against Bucky’s solid, strong body. Bucky rubs his face into his hair and holds him tight. “Stay safe, Bucky,” Steve breathes, the magnitude of everything suddenly becoming real and crushing his already struggling lungs. He shuts his eyes as they begin to burn and wishes he could keep his best friend here forever. 

“Stevie, don’t cry,” Bucky pleads helplessly as his own eyes begin to go wet. “Jesus Christ, pal. I’m going to miss you but I’m comin’ back, I promise.”

He looks at Steve’s face and smiles at how ridiculous the both of them are weeping like mothers. “Don’t win the war till I get there,” Steve says. Bucky chuckles and nods, not knowing the truth in Steve’s words. 

This is potentially the last chance he’ll ever get at telling Steve how he feels. Bucky starts but stops. Steve deserves more than a coward who can only confess to his love when he’s being shipped away to die for his country. He shakes his head and kisses the top of Steve’s head. “Take care of yourself."


	2. Chapter 2

Even though he was allowed to join the army under a special condition, like Bucky, Steve still has to do training. It kicks his ass more than the rest of the recruits because they were able to get in without any intervention. Steve suffers as he pushes himself through every exercise. 

The men around him don’t take kindly to him or his pain. Hunched over gasping for air, they kick dirt in his face and run. They trample his fingers while they’re on the climbing nets. They eye him like they would eye dames in the street just to make his skin crawl. Some go as far as whistling in his direction, earning laughter from the rest of the fatheads. Dr. Erskine watches him perform, sending him looks of apology, and Colonel Phillips looks on as well, face blank yet still read as dissatisfaction. 

Phillips tells Steve he is done for the day with a grumble after he’s tripped by another soldier too fast to be caught. It leaves Steve puzzled, like most of their interactions, since he’s never sure what Phillips feels about having him on base.

Through request, Steve was able to have his own private room. Erskine was adamant about Steve having his own space to keep him safe and Steve didn’t realize how much he’d need it until today. It’s tiny but a luxury during wartime. He slips out of his shirt and unwinds the roll of bandage around his chest, feeling free and hurt all at once. He can breathe in enough air to choke on it and sob. 

He muffles his weeps with his dirty shirt, feeling a growl crawl out of his throat next. Then a few knocks come to his door. 

He quickly wipes away his tears and pulls his shirt over his head. He hurries over and opens the door to Agent Carter. “Hello, Rogers,” she greets him with a simple red-lipped smile. She was wonderful to look at the moment Steve’s eyes landed on her, even more so when she landed a perfect hook on that disrespectful recruit, Hodge, who’s been giving Steve a lot of flak, and gracefully fell back into her role with a quick adjustment of her hair. A lovely woman that Steve would never want to get on the bad side of. 

“H-hi,” Steve says, voice roughened by his cries of frustration. He prays she doesn’t take notice of it. 

If she does, she doesn’t mention it. She steps forward, into his room. “I just… wanted to check in on you. Forgive me if I’m overanalyzing, but I thought today was especially difficult for you. Men in the army… aren’t exactly angels, are they?” She says as she takes in his room, the books on his window sill and the sketchbook on his desk. The bandage on his floor. Fuck. “Is that for you?” 

“Uh, uh, no. Well, yeah, but I…,” Steve stammers, unsure how to excuse it. He isn’t wounded. He has nothing to cover for it. 

Carter’s lips purse to one side, considering thoughtfully and they’re the scariest seconds of Steve’s life. She replies, “You know, they’re not very healthy to wear around your chest, especially when you’re training, Rogers.” It doesn’t sound menacing or disgusted. It sounds caring. Caring but lightly condemning, a tone Bucky would use and has used many times. “Don’t wear that any longer. I’ll find something better for you to wear. By tonight. I swear it.” 

She leaves without another word and Steve stands there, speechless. 

Steve sketches for hours, and at one point, he wonders if Agent Carter was just playing a joke on him by taking away his bandage, leaving him nothing to bind his chest with. But she returns and Steve feels awful for ever thinking she’d do him wrong. She steps inside and smiles as she reveals her gift to him. 

The fabric is tough but has enough give, Steve thinks as he tugs on it with his hands, that he won’t ruin his ribcage in it. “It won’t get tighter with every movement like the bandage did,” Carter tells him as he continues to stare at it, like it isn’t actually there in his hands. It looks like one of his A-shirts cut in half. But it flattens his chest. It’s the kindest thing an almost stranger has done for him, and he embarrassingly can’t hold back the tears that make his eyes glassy. Agent Carter smiles and embraces him like a good friend would. Once he’s simmered down, she softly says, “You should try it on. Let me know if there are any adjustments to be made. Or if you want it in a different color.” 

Steve looks at her and she doesn’t realize he’s silently asking a question. He breathes deeply before he pulls off his shirt and bares his chest, liberated, but fear of some sort of rejection lingers. He focuses on putting on his new undergarment instead of looking for a miniscule negative reaction in Carter’s eyes. She helps him slip into it because it is quite tight and will need to be broken in. However, he’ll be able to breathe in it better than his horrific bandage. Her words. 

He pulls his shirt on over it and runs his hand down his flattened chest. He tries not to get emotional again. “Thank you,” Steve breathes, plopping down on his bed and making the springs squeak. Carter takes a seat next to him and nods. “Not a lot of people are kind to me like that.” 

“Well, I’m trying to… make up for my wrongdoings. It’ll never be enough in my eyes but I don’t mind giving more to others,” she says as she plays with her hands in her lap. She looks at Steve and her big brown eyes are glazed over, beautiful.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks softly, seeing her become vulnerable like he’s never seen yet. 

“I haven’t always been kind. Back home, I’ve been fighting for the rights of women since I was 17. I came to know a woman with a similar background to yours and I didn’t want to include her in my fight because I didn’t consider her a woman,” she explains, punctuating herself with a rueful smile and a tear bubbling in her eye. Her expression is pained with the hope of not being seen differently, not being rejected, and Steve is the recipient of that look for the first time. “But she became a great friend to me, taught me how to see things correctly which was more than I deserved.”

The tear rolls down her soft cheek and Steve reaches over to wipe it away. She’s surprised by the action almost as much as Steve is himself and giggles self-deprecatingly. “I don’t mean to make this about me. If you ever need anything, Steve, anything at all,” she continues as she places a hand over the one Steve has placed on the bed, “I’m here and I know others who would help in a heartbeat.” 

He believes it. “Thank you, Peggy,” he replies. 

* * *

The next days are easier on Steve’s ribs and his breathing. Peggy notices and sends him a smile as she watches over the exercises. 

“Good job, soldiers! We are done for the day,” Peggy announces, watching the men get up from the ground, dirt clinging to their white shirts and the sweat on their skin. She hovers near Steve and quietly says, “Get yourself cleaned up and meet me back here.”

Steve looks over both of his shoulders, in disbelief that it would be directed solely at him. Peggy fondly shakes her head at him, “You, Rogers. Go.”

Peggy takes him on a walk. She guides him up a small hill of wild grass that overlooks the base and is obscured by trees so they can look on discreetly. “I thought you could use some peace and quiet away from everyone else,” she explains, sitting down on the grass with her legs folded under her and patting the area beside her. It almost feels like a test of Steve’s dedication to the war and Peggy notices him thinking this. “I know the mission is important – winning this war is the priority – but we need to stay human if we’re going to survive after it. Sit with me.”

They talk and at some point, Steve picks a yellow dandelion out of the ground and puts it in her hair. Steve feels his heart beat in his ears as he looks at her smiling at him, the sun shining on her beautiful skin and turning her chocolate eyes into caramel.

He’s liked girls before but only from the distance that they’d place in between themselves and Steve. Many girls were repulsed by him and would express that through their countenance or straight up verbalize it. He was always made into in outsider by men and women. He really only had Bucky. But now he thinks, maybe, he has Peggy too to help him feel a part of the world. 

“I didn’t snoop through your cabin or anything,” Peggy says as she goes through the small duffel bag she brought along, “but I brought this.” Peggy pulls out his sketchbook from the bag and a few pencils as well as one pen. She adds, “I didn’t look through it.” But Steve didn’t need her too. He trusts her. 

“Thank you,” he says as he opens it. “My ma gave me this sketchbook before she got sick 7 years ago. Still haven’t filled it even halfway because I couldn’t touch it for months after she died.”

There’s a beat of silence between them and Steve feels guilty he darkened the warm mood Peggy was trying to foment. He mumbles a quick, “Sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“No, you don’t have to apologize for anything and certainly not that,” Peggy cuts him off, a hand reaching out to lightly grip his knee. He feels the nerves in his skin die and come alive over and over in the few seconds her hand is there. “Tuberculosis, right?” She sees the expression that comes onto Steve’s face and she sheepishly explains, “I  _ did _ take a peek at your file when Erskine first told me about you.”

“Oh. Yeah. She was a nurse in a ward, got hit,” Steve confirms. He opens the sketchbook and looks at his past sketches briefly while flipping through to a clean page, taking a second look at a drawing of Bucky’s back from some morning in Brooklyn. “She wasn’t perfect but she was a wonderful mother.”

Carefully, she asks, “Was she supportive?”

“As much as she could be.” He doesn’t even realize he’s started sketching until he starts seeing a little of the corner of his mom’s cheekbone. “When she got angry with me, she would throw how hard it was to support me, but she wasn’t wrong in saying that. She could’ve lost it all because of me, her job, the apartment, but… somehow she made it all work out. I’m very lucky for her.”

“It still couldn’t have been easy.” 

“But it could’ve been much worse. Could’ve been sent off to get fixed. Could be dead,” Steve replies, feeling his lips tug into a frown. A lot of his life seems to be comprised of that sentiment and Steve is still waiting for the day where he doesn’t have to be grateful for not being in those worse situations. Until then, he cherishes the few good things. His mother did love him from the beginning to the very end and nothing could change his view on that. He turns it on her, “What about you? How are your folks?” 

“They’re fine people. I don’t talk to them much anymore, but they gave me a world of opportunity,” She answers, finding herself quickly ashamed by her vagueness after what Steve shared. “They wanted me on a path that would make me a man’s other half while I have always felt whole by myself. I always pushed back and so I got kicked out my private school for being too… bold, and they couldn’t handle how I tainted our family’s reputation. They didn’t throw me out of the house but I left as soon as I could and have been living my life.”

Steve pauses his sketching. “So both of our families had trouble accepting who we are,” he summarizes. 

“I guess so.” Peggy went down, propping herself up on her elbows. Like flipping a switch, she flashes a bright smile to improve the mood, “But how great of us, how amazing to be defiant and choose our own destiny. Not many people have the audacity so when you think about it, Steven, we’re the lucky ones.” 

Steve watches her look over the camp like a queen over a kingdom and he smiles to himself as he soaks in her words. Steve wonders what force brought Peggy Carter into his life and quietly thanks it. He was lucky.

* * *

The procedure comes closer and closer until it’s the night before. Steve tries to make his room spotless, coming to the conclusion that his neatness would be a nice detail in his eulogy. Peggy is sitting on his bed with a pillow behind her back, flipping through his sketchbook and glancing at him every now and then. It was rare that she had time to spend freely, which made him all the more grateful when she chose to spend it with him. 

“Steve,” she warmly groans his name when he begins to align the spines of the books on his desk for the third time. “Seriously, come sit. It’s clean enough.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, stepping away from his desk and turning to her. He takes in the picture before him of a beautiful woman in his bed, looking at his art. He quickly swallows the lump in his throat. “I think I might explode if I stay too still.” 

Peggy looks up to giggle at him and it makes Steve’s heart pound, “Well, I promise you that won’t happen. Come.” She waves him over and he sits, closer to the foot of the bed. She closes his sketchbook, “Are you excited at all?”

“I think so,” he answers somewhat honestly. He surely has feelings of excitement within him but it’s drowned out by his anxiety. He doesn’t know what he’s anxious about, never being someone that ever felt fear of pain or death, but he is. He thinks that right now he just wants to see Bucky one more time. “How are you feeling?” 

“I feel excited,” she says gleefully as she adjusts herself to get closer to Steve. She puts down his sketchbook and squeezes his shoulder to get him eye-to-eye, “Erskine told me some more of his predictions on what the changes are going to be and I think this procedure is going to be everything you thought wouldn’t ever be possible.”

Steve smiles at her with endearment, feeling weak for her emotional investment and the way she speaks so huskily when whispering. She smiles back at him and then they’re stood still in that moment, unknowingly feeling the same emotions. Steve breaks the stillness by chuckling and looking away, “I can’t wait to be completely different.” He imagines himself stronger, bigger, braver, a man worthy of a woman like Peggy.

Peggy’s smile falters for a millisecond before she fixes him with a soft look. Her lovely mouth opens and says, “You’re great the way you are right now too.”

Steve feels his face heat up and knowing that Peggy must be seeing the shade of her lips blooming on his cheek makes him burn up more. His eyes waver for a second as he nervously replies, “You think so?” He meets her eyes after, dark and alluring, and he can’t look away.

“I know so, Steve,” Peggy assures him. She leans in and her voice drops into an octave that tickles Steve with desire, “And when have I ever been wrong?” 

They look at each other with an uncertain determination. Steve’s hands reach for her, hesitant to touch, but she moves in closer and his arms come around her waist. 

Peggy’s hands cup his face and finally,  _ finally, _ Steve feels her lips on his. She pulls back just enough to press another kiss to his mouth, over and over. For a fleeting second, he wonders if he should worry about the red lipstick transferring, but he does not have it in him to really care when it feels this good. He’s dreamed about that red lipstick. 

Like she’s reading his mind, she breaks the kiss to look at her work with an equally messy smile. She kisses him again and pushes him onto his back. Steve feels her chest against his, feels her heartbeat, and can’t stop the noise that vibrates in his throat. She moans in response. He feels her hands come to the buttons on her shirt and start to undo them, lightning striking his hunger for her. Steve feels only the two of them existing in this little world.

But there’s a knock at the door and their fantasy crumbles. 

Peggy yelps and rolls off of Steve. “Clean your face,” she hisses quietly as she does her buttons. 

As she hides under the bed, Steve yells out, "I'll be right there! I'm changing!"

Steve wipes his face with the inside of his shirt and then makes his way to the door to find Erskine there with a bottle of schnapps. Steve smiles nervously, unsure if Erskine is noticing a pink tint around his mouth.

He doesn’t drink with Erskine but they do toast “to the little guys, the  _ different _ guys” and he leaves shortly after. Peggy rolls out from underneath once the door shuts behind him and she quips, “Well, he said all of that much better than I did.”

“Well, only one of you ended up on top of me so maybe give yourself more credit,” Steve giggles, making her grin as she gets up from the floor. She sits beside him again and rests her head on his shoulder and it’s enough. 

Tomorrow’s procedure is not without risk, but Steve is going to survive. He knows this much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this might be longer than 10 chapters......... definitely expect it.


End file.
